


weightless (finally i'm flying)

by whaliiwatching



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Donald-centric, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, but it's not..... suuuuper heavy, introspective???, its a love wing fic everyone, no i have not watched the new season, pre-della's return, scrooge n donald have the Most Affectionate relationship fight me, there is a blood tw, thinkin bout della, tiny hint of gay caballeros, zan is boss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22593376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whaliiwatching/pseuds/whaliiwatching
Summary: The Duck-McDuck family finds love in odd places.(ft. donald loving himself, lots of thoughts on della, and wholesome content)
Relationships: Dewey Duck & Donald Duck & Huey Duck & Louie Duck, Donald Duck & Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck & Webby Vanderquack, Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera & Gyro Gearloose, Flintheart Glomgold/Scrooge McDuck, Lena (Disney: DuckTales) & Webby Vanderquack, could be read as platonic but why would you - Relationship
Comments: 29
Kudos: 298





	1. sibling drift

**Author's Note:**

> it's a bit of a complicated system here so this is the wing reference, but i do write it into the story so yall don't hafta read it
> 
> scapulars (shoulder feathers) - love from the public; agape  
> marginal coverts ('upper arm' feathers - self-love; philautia  
> alula (these lil bits by the 'elbow') - passion; eros  
> primary coverts (under forearm feathers) - longstanding; pragma  
> primaries (the main bit) - familial; storge  
> secondaries (another,, main bit) - deep friendship; philia  
> secondary coverts (between scaps and seconds) - flirtatious, playful love; ludus
> 
> ok so i've never posted here before, and my fanfic skills are a bit rusty so patienceee  
> hope the formatting is ok, i used 'rich text' whatever that means, bc it let me use Italics  
> aight that's it have fun

_\---della duck---_

Before the moon, Della Duck thought wings were the grandest things ever.

Despite never bothering to learn how they worked, why some people had no wings and others spindly featherless bones, she’d always been fascinated by her own. She’d always had rather large wings, in part because she’d always loved herself. She’s awesome, so why shouldn’t she know it? She’d loved herself since the moment she knew she could do better than everyone around her—to the moment she did.

Besides, learning the placement and assorted meaning of love feathers was—is—useless. All that matters, she thinks, even now on a cold hard rock, is having lots of feathers. She’s always loved being loved.

When she and Donald had moved into Uncle Scrooge’s mansion, her little wings (previously decorated with mottled pink-and-white feathers, which proved her self-love and her little brother’s, as well as her cousins’ love, though she’d only met them once) grew trifold. This took about a week, and after, her primary feathers had been healthy and glossy and huge. This, Della held and still holds, is evidence that Uncle Scrooge loves her, and Duckworth, and eventually all the friends she made growing up. She was rich in flight.

(this is why she wanted to be _up there_. wings would never have cut it for della duck.)

Moments before the crash, she tried to remember the science behind love wings. Where would her boys’ feathers grow on her? She imagined her wings fanning out in streaks of white and pink, big enough to bring her past the sky, Spear of Selene or no. And theirs, growing as big and bright as hers, with her to reach the stars.

Moments after the crash, she lost her secondary feathers. They had been the softest, lightest pink, and her sweetest proof that Donald cared about her. They burned in the smoke of the Spear.

She never gets the flight feathers back. Some things are irreparable.

She still had her primaries, though, and in spite of years on a glorified meteor, she doesn’t lose them. And, at the connection of her wings to her back (exactly where she can’t see them) a row of sparse feathers crawl into view. This is storge, her children’s love for her, the only one she can remember for sure. She doesn’t think they’re in the right spot.

Six years on the moon, and Della Duck, if she is being completely honest, is forced to admit that love wings are no longer the grandest things ever.

_\---donald duck_ \---

For as long as he can remember, Donald Duck has been of the opinion that love wings are the worst things ever.

His reasoning being: Without the physical proof, love is theoretical. Donald could choose to believe whether someone really loved him or not. He wouldn’t have to face the truth when his wings molt down to nothing, because there wouldn’t be anything to molt, and he could live in denial, surrounded by people who _might_ care. 

Unfortunately, physiology does not bend to Donald Duck’s will, although it should by all means reconsider its stance on that. 

When he is little and only knows of Unca Scrooge through stories, his wings are plain white interspersed with the sea-foam blue of his first favorite color, and far too small to do much more than look pitiful. He learned about love wings from booklets his sister offered to steal for him, and from the far-too-young age of three and a half, he learns that Hortense loves enough to show, but not enough to _grow_.

At the far-too-young age of four and one week, he learns how exactly he can earn more of her love: if he keeps quiet, lets no one hear him, and does the dishes, and cleans the house, and stays out of her way. It earns him health in already-existing feathers, the vanes a little bluer and fluffier, faded and old but they’re _there_ and when they fluff out, he cries (alone with della in his and della’s room). 

When they go back to being scraggly and pitiful, he doesn’t feel much at all. Because she’s died and what is he supposed to feel about that?

(della isn’t bothered much by the lack of motherly love on her wings. she have to be; her wings are already as long as her upper arms. but donald curls in on himself at the realization that he will never have his mother’s love back.)

\---

Uncle Scrooge does not love them immediately. This much is shown, obviously, by the red-clad duck leaving his big black car and, upon spying them, does not inflict any hot sandy tingling in their extra limbs. Della continues, unfazed, to get him on her side, to point out his healthy scapulars ( _love from the public: agape,_ whispers donald’s mind, even as young as now) and fluffy secondaries ( _deep friendship: philia. essential to flight_ ). It takes a week for her primaries to fluff out beyond the standard ( _storge, familial)._

Donald keeps mostly out of sight during the weeks following their adoption. He doesn’t talk, doesn’t show his wings, to anyone but Della, and even then he tries his best not to. They’re too small to be seen, anyway.

Until one day he’s winning against his sister at Scrabble.

“This is the _boringest_ ,” She complains, which is exactly why she isn’t winning. She thumbs down _bat_ in nondescript squares. “Why can’t we go back to Astronaut Firepoker Fights?”

“Because it was my turn to choose. Suck it up and add my points,” Donald says (he’d sign the response, but a seventy-something-point word is literally within his grasp and there is no way in anything he’s losing it).

He tacks _jukebox_ onto _bat_ and then his eyes are tearing up. There’s a warm, rough feeling underneath his primary converts _(longstanding love, pragma_ ). He’s growing primaries. He’s growing primaries that aren’t his sisters. _Someone else loves him_.

The twins stare in amazement at Donald’s outstretched wings, as his primaries puff out, going from arctic and white to turquoise blue. Donald gasps and a flood builds in his eyes. He can feel the love that made them appear. It’s a hug he never got, a reassurance that he’s not—that—that he’s _lovable_. 

Uncle Scrooge is standing in the doorway, a fond smile smeared on his beak. Donald gapes at him, and after a moment, the smile drops into a guilty grimace, but the little duck ignores it—he stumbles forward on five-year-old feet and hugs his Unca Scrooge around the legs. 

“Thank you,” He whispers. They’re the first words Uncle Scrooge ever hears from Donald to him, the first words he’s meant in so, so long. Unca Scrooge’s own wings flourish in family feathers, and Donald hugs him tighter. 

\--- 

Donald, unlike his sister, is more of a wallflower than a social butterfly; he likes people but can’t stand them for long. So as he watches Della’s wings extend past her fingers, gaining color and health and size, he keeps his own neatly tucked away. All he needs are the colors he already has - sea foam, aqua blue, and the standard white of his genetics. 

He makes tentative, then longstanding friends with Panchito and José, and even grows his first secondary converts ( _playful, flirtatious love, ludus_ ) with them. He thinks they’ll be friends forever. But they drift apart and he loses the feathers, although some memory of them remain in his secondaries, and he knows they’re never quite _not friends_ anymore. And he has other friends—like Mickey, who loves enough for everyone, and the rest of the Sensational Six. And, hilariously enough, he gets a few admiration scapular feathers from his adventures. He gains and loses alula feathers ( _eros, passion_ ) but this is okay. As long as he keeps his storge feathers, _visible_ _proof_ that his family loves him, he can fly to the moon and back. 

And then the Spear of Selene happens.

Donald molts when he and Della fight. His wings start to break down, twenty-four years of deep friendship and longstanding love shedding in one night, because his sister has always been too ambitious to keep close. Della’s own wings tremble, and she loses a few secondary feathers. She doesn’t even seem to notice. 

He thinks he’d won during the argument, but he should know that when his wings don’t heal, she’s going back to the spaceship. He doesn’t until it’s too late.

When he learns that she’s gone, he watches his Uncle Scrooge’s wings for any sign of lost love. A single bit of reassurance that Donald can let go of things—namely, Scrooge.

The old duck’s feathers shudder and one piece of _philia_ floats serenely to the floor. 

Donald’s wings don’t even quiver. 

He walks out with the eggs his sister left behind and doesn’t look back for ten years.

\--- 

Well, that’s not entirely accurate.

He does look back. Quite a bit. In horrible, unending regret and agony, his mind pulverizing itself with the question, _What if the boys could have a better life there?_

Donald Duck loves the triplets. More than anything in the world.

They hatch with wings already to their wrists. Huey is first, poking out of his shell with wary eyes, wings poised to flap. They’re Duck-McDuck white, but only just—his wings’ whole undersides are the light brown of his egg and fluffy with what Donald knows is his own love. Some of them are Scrooge’s, and some are Della’s, and this maybe should have made Donald sad or angry, maybe, but all he feels is relief. Donald, who had been panicking only a moment before, pulls him into his lap and preens him, while the newborn quacks happily.

Dewey is born with eyes wide open. He breaks out of his shell two minutes later with all the gusto of probably Della, and flares his wings for all to see. They’re messy and unkempt but match his brother’s perfectly. 

Louie takes only a little longer. He crawls out, blinking sleepily, and joins his siblings under Donald’s bill, and Donald already loves them so, so much, even when they start screaming.

After he’s done all the newborn duckling stuff he read about in books, and has a moment to himself, he finds family feathers tucked under his primary converts, each one tiny and soft and tinged in the soft pale brown of his boys’ eggs. He laughs to himself; he’d been expecting red and green and blue. Maybe they’ll grow into the family theme. 

\---

When they hit the second grade, the panic that’s been following him since he left McDuck Manor starts to eat him alive.

Raising three troublemaking ducklings is so, so hard. Especially in Donald’s situation: alone, without financial stability, plus his inherent bad luck, plus-plus loving his kids so much that they have wings big enough to fly with. (the last of which he would never, ever change, _ever_ , even if it meant dewey couldn’t sneak out so much. he’d probably find another way anyway.)

When they reach fifth grade, he finally gives in and asks Scrooge to babysit. And they kind of never move out again. 

Donald is hesitant to let his boys go adventuring with Scrooge. It’s dangerous, of course, but he doesn’t want them becoming too… too Della, maybe. Reckless, no-second-thoughts (or first) charging into danger. He doesn’t want them sucked up in the adventuring life.

He stays around. Not because he misses the action.

(not entirely, anyway.)

\---

This is one of the instances in which Donald doesn’t much like love wings. 

His boys fawn over Scrooge like Scrooge over gold. They adore him and his stories and the offers that trail behind him—never-ending excitement, riches beyond comprehension. They fawn over Gladstone, too, because of what he gives, which is practically everything. They even like Beakley, who is probably a (retired?) spy. 

Donald, quickly and surely, feels second-rate, then third, then nothing. He’s the ugly duckling (again). 

Every night he checks his wings. Have the boys forgotten him yet? His storge, his pragma and philia feathers, have they fallen out? Has he not been enough his whole life?

His wings don’t shed, but really, it’s only a matter of time.

\---

Making amends with Uncle Scrooge is something Donald wanted to treat like a bandaid. See it fray, avoid it for as long as possible, then get fed up with the itching and rip it off, heedless of the following pain.

And that wound festers like nothing else. So, when the kids are out for ice cream and Beakley is dealing with a completely inconspicuous mess in the kitchen, Donald corners Scrooge in his office. 

Well, ‘corners.’ He was in there already. Donald just kind of marched up to it. He’s done it before to unkind bosses he got angry with. His uncle doesn’t seem like the rest of the bosses, though.

“What do ye want?” Scrooge mutters, scribbling something in a notebook.

“We… we really need to talk.”

They do.

They sort it out. Donald doesn’t blame him anymore. And he doesn’t blame himself for not fighting harder to keep her here. It ends with both of them crying and both of them healing.

And wow, Donald has missed his Unca so, so much.

They’re affectionate again. They give each other little kisses, like they used to, and embarrass each other, and Donald loves it, and finally he thinks he can’t be happier. Both their wings are fluffy and bright with unbroken plumes, storge, pragma, philia. 

He’s on his way. 

\--- 

Donald is good at predicting angles. He’s had to learn, being the father of conniving triplets for ten years. He’s actually a bit like Uncle Scrooge (and louie) in that department, though not to the same extent. But he’d never quite seen this coming.

He’s in the houseboat, trying to fix a cupboard that’s gone without hinges for far too long. Though the houseboat is practically a useless endeavor at this point, he doesn’t want to mooch off of Uncle Scrooge forever, and for all that Scrooge secretly adores his nephew, he wouldn’t want that either.

Webby comes by.

Crying.

This is new.

Donald, being the Duck Father, immediately puts down everything that once occupied his hands because whatever it was, it’s obsolete now, and kneels on the floor, at her eye level.

She sees the invitation immediately and leaps into his arms. He hugs her tightly, minding her white and purple wings (he notes, fondly, the health of her storge feathers, as well as the philia ones, no doubt contributions from his boys).

Three, four minutes go by, with Webby sniffling into his uniform and him rubbing her back and murmuring sweet comforts to the air around them. He considers pulling away to see her face, but hard things are told easier without eye contact, he’s noticed.

“What’s up, Webs?”

She curls in and breathes for a moment. Then she shakes her head. 

“Okay,” Donald breathes, rocking them both a little. He’ll stay here for as long as she needs.

She needs approximately sixteen minutes. Or, that’s as long as it takes for her to fall asleep on his chest. He fumbles with her, a bit unused to carrying a ten-year-old (though he does it more than he thought he would), and ends up bringing her to the boys’ old room. He lets her sleep in the bottom hammock and tells Beakley where she is and also to not disturb her. 

Whatever’s wrong, he will be here for her when she wants to talk and when she doesn’t, no matter what. She’s his kid, too.

\---

It takes a while. 

The boys are, predictably, wrapped up in adventuring and gold and history—and school, Donald insisted—and have little time for their boring old dad/uncle. But it happens.

They remember him.

Donald is in the parlor, waiting for them to return from their latest adventure. Something about a magic old picture frame left in the house of a long-dead murderer. Nothing his kids and Uncle Scrooge couldn’t handle, he’d decided when he waved them off.

He is wrong about that.

The door creaks open. It’s dusk, and the parlor is awash with sunlight, and the kids and Uncle Scrooge stumble in, haggard and bloody.

 _His family is hurt_. Donald rockets out of his chair. 

“Kids! What happened?” He hovers over them as they slouch, rubbing various injuries and clutching feathers. Uncle Scrooge stands off to the side - he appears mostly unharmed, but the worried crease in his brow might never leave, and there’s a bit of blood on his temple. 

Webby is the only one to speak up. “The murderer wasn’t dead enough.”

Donald hates ghosts. He feels weak in the knees—wants to sink down and hold his family so they can never get so much as a papercut again—but right now they need first aid and there’s no one in this family better at that than him. (except maybe beakley.)

He nudges them toward the nearest bathroom. Every bathroom one in the manor is stocked with supplies in case of this, a result of Donald’s vehement arguments in favor of it. Scrooge follows, leaning on his cane too heavily, and Donald makes everyone sit down on the rim of the bathtub and recount their injuries one by one.

Huey has slashes on his arms, though thank God they’re not deep enough to need stitches; Dewey earned double skinned knees and a sprained wrist; Louie was struck with the murderer’s knife on his front, which does need stitches (donald hadn’t spent four years in the navy and learned nothing). Webby had twisted her fingers and bruised a rib, and Donald ices both and orders her to rest against a cushion in the tub when she refuses to leave. 

Scrooge insists that he’s fine, but Donald doesn’t let him off so easily. Dewey freely admits he was clobbered in the head by the knife’s hilt. Scrooge, thankfully, doesn’t have a concussion, but it did leave a trickle of blood. Donald cleans it and kisses his uncle’s forehead.

They’re only minor injuries. Baby ones, really, though they caused blood and pain and Donald despises his family hurt. But the biggest reason everyone looks so rumpled is the wings.

The murderer tried to tear out his family’s feathers.

Donald remembers an adventure like this. He had been captured by the villain, some rake-thin robin intent on whatever prize he was supposed to be looking out for (golden rope of desire or truth or something). 

During the waiting-for-Scrooge part, Donald had cried and laughed in the robin’s face. He’s the worst bait the dude could have stolen. And, angry, the robin retaliated.

There’s nothing quite like getting your love feathers ripped out. It’s not just pain, of course it isn’t; it kills all the love held for you. The robin tore Donald’s precious primaries out and let them fall to the floor, white and blue and bloodied. 

They grew back, in five or so minutes. Donald had never and has never since felt so alone.

The boys each hold a drift of marzipan feathers in their hands. Their wings are full, though ragged, and Donald does fall to his knees and uncurl their hands, softly, slowly. 

Huey doesn’t give his up. Louie pushes them into Donald’s hands like they’re on fire. Dewey lets them float onto the tile. “They grew back instantly,” The blue twin whispers, as if confessing a terrible secret.

Donald visibly sinks in relief. His shoulders tremble. “Thank _everything_. I’m so sorry, boys.”

“We didn’t—” Huey starts, his grip on his feathers like iron. “We didn’t know you…”

A moment of silence. Webby groans quietly behind them.

“We didn’t know you loved us that much,” Louie admits.

Donald boggles. “ _What?”_ Oh, no, he failed them, he wanted to make them feel infinitely loved, why didn’t it work, did he not love them as much as Della could, has he failed? Is he not enough? Uncle Scrooge could have loved them more, he has, he’s been able to provide for them, oh _no_ —

“It’s just,” Dewey picks up, “It’s just Mom. And how she, how she left? We didn’t know anyone would really—that you’d really—like us around.” 

“Of course I like you around,” Donald says, appalled. They can’t _ever_ be left unloved, not his boys. “You’re my nephews. My _boys.”_

“You were sacked with us,” Louie says bitterly. “Mom left us with you and you never wanted that.”

“I—” Donald breaks off and sighs. He sits in front of them on the bathroom tile. “I didn’t want her to leave you, no. I thought she’d be here to raise you. But I wasn’t unprepared to, if she really… didn’t come back.”

“But you didn’t want to.”

“I did,” Donald says firmly. “I would have half-raised you anyway. And I have never, ever regretted raising you. Not even at the beginning. Not now. _Never_. I’m more than Uncle Donald because of you three—you four.” He nods to Webby, who’s conscious enough to smile. “I love you more than anything.”

Louie sniffles. Donald hadn’t noticed his green boy was crying. He gathers him up in his arms, mindful of his stitched gash, and combs his fingers through the kid’s wings. It doesn’t work this way, but Donald tries to push all his love into his child, so he can _feel_ it.

Huey slides off the tub lip and curls into Donald’s side on the bathroom tile. Dewey sidles up to his other arm and they lay there, uncomfortable, with cold stone seeping into their legs, but Donald wouldn’t move for the solar system. 

Scrooge, who’s been silently watching, settles by the bathroom tile and holds Donald’s free hand.

It feels, finally, like the wounds are closing up. This family is held together with duct tape and red conspiracy string, but it’s holding together. It’s moving into place.

(he'll notice later that his marginal coverts are fluffy and blue. this, his five-year-old voice will echo, is self love. _finally_.)

Donald, through all his hardship and struggles, finally becomes of the opinion that wings are beautiful things to have. 


	2. unshakeable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> studies, in order:
> 
> The younger Duck-McDuck family members process learning about Della.
> 
> Lena, insecurity, and light metaphors.
> 
> Fenton and Gyro share a Bonding Moment.
> 
> Two gay old ducks learn the importance of communication.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops quarantine got me bad  
> i've barely written in the eight(?) weeks since we all got shut up in our little caves but i pulled through..... eventually  
> anyway here's a few more character studies in this au!!

_ \---huey, dewey, louie--- _

Considering their historical family fascination with red, blue, and green, it might always be odd to Huey, Dewey, and Louie that their wings aren’t color-coded like everything else.

Huey likes the eggshell brown. It’s soft and creamy, doesn’t attract too much attention, lets him wear other colors if he so desires. Dewey still thinks neon blue would suit him more than the marzipan tone, and has tried to dye them several times, but he’s not.. um. Good at it. 

Louie dislikes the idea of love wings entirely.

It’s like—it’s like he can  _ feel _ his mother’s feathers missing. Like, if she were here, the primaries he grows from Donald’s love would be fuller, bigger, enough to get him above the clouds. Without them, he’s empty. Lacking. Something. 

Whatever.

The lightness doesn’t bother him too much. He can forget about it, about the distinct weightlessness of his extra limbs, for days or weeks on end. Still, it only takes a gust of wind through the vanes to remember what he doesn’t have.

Louie thinks he shouldn't have abandonment issues. He has Donald, and Donald’s great, of course. He has his siblings, who would never leave. A few months ago, his family was topped off with Uncle Scrooge and his honorary sister Webby and their honorary grandmother Beakley. 

But. His mom. There’s a gap she leaves, an empty space at the table, a plate never used… a few feathers short of a wing. 

A few nights after Magica, after they find out once and for all how far their mother flew, Louie hides out in the houseboat. Donald lets him, never pries into why he’s here—he understands that Louie just needs peace, just needs space to sway on his feet. He’s not looking for more answers—more  _ excuses.  _

He sits in his hammock for over an hour, thoughts turning like dough in his mind. They’re mostly composed of biting questions, followed by half-hearted attempts to defend a woman he never got the chance to know, and Louie has the need to be angry but lacks the energy to release it. So it curls up under his ankles and in the skin of his wrists, waiting for an explosion.

A breeze curls around his wings and gets into the empty spaces. He shivers.

\---

The sky is going from Dewey’s-shirt blue to soft ocean when the floor planks creak.

Louie turns his head to the side. Huey is there, hanging his hat on a hook. Dewey moves past him and retrieves a tricolored quilt from atop their old toy chest. Huey wordlessly crawls over Louie and lies down beside him, and Dewey tumbles in right after, the quilt settling over their bodies like fog.

“She didn’t want to leave us,” Dewey says quietly.

“She knew the risks,” Huey argues back, voice similarly low, similarly unprovocative.

This is an old practice. Louie is the tactician, the seer of all angles. His brothers will debate over his head, and it grounds him, hearing both sides of the fight. Nobody has to win, he doesn’t have to take sides—only understand.

Dewey says, “She knew she was going to have us. Why leave if we were her choice?”

“We ended up not  _ being _ her choice,” Huey says. “She was reckless. She wanted one last adventure, and ended up overconfident.”

“She loved us. She was so excited to have us. She was sure it was a milk run.”

“Things go wrong.”

His and his brothers’ wings are tangled. The feathers poke at each other, and the latte color blends until they all look like one fluffy young mass.

Huey’s primaries slide between Louie’s own, and Dewey angles his so they fit the empty spaces.

Louie sniffles, and his brothers wrap their arms around him. He doesn’t feel so cold anymore.

_ \---webby--- _

Webby didn’t hear an American accent until she was seven. Because of this, she has a bit of an accent herself, but her penchant for languages allows her to feign American so she doesn’t spook people. 

She does that anyway, she figures, having next to no social skills as a result of not really leaving the Manor for most of her life. 

Another thing that stems from her isolation is the state of her wings.

When the triplets came to the Manor, she saw young wings besides her own for the first time, and they were so  _ different _ from hers. Theirs were huge and shiny, soft. Enough to get them off the ground, she reckons. Webby is not at all ashamed to say she fawned over them before properly meeting the children they’re attached to. 

Webby’s wings are small. They’re a bit scraggly, too. Not much muscle on them; they barely respond to any signals she sends. This is a direct result of only two people really knowing of her existence. No matter how much her granny loves her—and she knows it’s a lot—two people alone can’t sustain two wings. 

And maybe the fullness of the triplets’ wings are what motivate her to team up with Dewey to research. It’s uncanny how healthy they are, because she knows that even though Donald adores his boys,  _ lives _ for them really, his love alone can’t do all that. Scrooge loves them too, even when he hadn’t met them yet, so that could have contributed. And of course the triplets have lives outside their relatives, school and arcades and places that would easily give to them. But it just—didn’t fit right.

So, reasonably, Webby thought,  _ What if she’s still out there, loving them? _

\---

Learning about Della hurts.

Webby just doesn’t understand it. There is this perfect mother in her eyes, all ready and excited to start a family. She has everything she could ever want—love, adventure, joy—and Webby rationalized it with an accident.  _ At the last moment, something horrible pulled the beautiful mom from her beautiful life, and nothing was ever the same. _

She was half right. There was something horrible. She just never thought Della would  _ choose _ it.

Maybe it’s unfair to say ‘choose.’ Della wasn’t trying to get herself killed, of course. Nobody could have predicted that. Except they could, and she could. It’s  _ space! _ The airless, soundless vacuum of stars and dark matter! There is nothing up there, except fire and cold and odds stacked against her, and still Della left, knowing there was barely a glimmer of success in the sky. 

It makes her angry. Unreasonably, intrinsically angry, a kind of fury only visited upon someone once or twice. The kind of fury Donald carries in his stature constantly. 

Webby wonders if this is what it’s like to  _ hate. _

She wonders if it’s Della’s fault. If it’s Donald’s, for not being able to convince her to keep her feet on the ground, if it’s Scrooge’s for not watching more closely or for building the blasted thing at all, if it’s the triplets’ for not being enough even though they were only eggs. Maybe it’s the moon’s for glowing too brightly or Earth’s for not glowing at all. Maybe it’s no ones’ fault. Maybe it’s everyone’s. 

Webby goes to find her granny. Beakley is not what she needs; Beakley is not knowledgeable enough of Della or this unique, terrible situation, but she’s a familiar comfort, and they bake cookies together, listening to soft music, not talking. 

They make three batches of gingerbread, despite it being August, because they’re Webby’s favorite. She finger-paints with frosting, decorates them messily and madly. Puts them in a box to give to Donald.

When in doubt, find the Dad.

She did, once before, a few days after she learned. Cried into his uniform and fell asleep in his lap and woke up in the hammock, bathed in sunlight and an old blanket. She didn’t talk that night, but feels the same story building up under her tongue now.

Webby sees through the window of the houseboat that the triplets are lying in a hammock together, looking morose, and decides not to bother them, Donald is just outside, fitting together the broken gangplank. He looks up when she approaches and gives an approving smile when the smell of gingerbread wafts past his nose.

“Hey, Webs,” He says quietly, which fits the mood of the sunset behind him. She sits beside him and opens the tub. They both take out cookies, knock them together like soda cans, and she snaps the head off her gingerbread duck.

Donald studies the art she’s splattered over the confection, then nibbles on its arms. “What’s got you up?”

Webby breaks her cookie’s legs. “How did you grow up?”

“What do you mean?” He sets the gangplank to the side, attention fully on her. It’s one of his best traits, how good he is with living things, how kind he is. Webby’s newspaper articles had always portrayed him as a wrathful soul—just goes to show how short books can fall.

“Before the Manor. Did you grow up happy?”

Donald tilts his head to the sky and thinks. The air above them darkens into the color of first-place ribbons. “Yes. I had a nice mother, and Della was there to keep the bullies off me. I had Fethry, and Gladstone wasn’t such a smug idiot, so I had friends. It wasn’t… it was okay. Good. Not ideal, but I didn’t know better.”

Webby absorbs this.  _ Not ideal…  _ it sounds close to home. “And after?”

“The Manor was big. Dark, empty. I didn’t talk, didn’t let anyone see my wings. I was scared and ashamed, I think, because they were small, because I’d just lost a lot of love. Fethry and Gladstone kind of faded from my life, and Della sucked up all the love that was around us like a sponge. I was happy for her, but I felt like I wasn’t doing enough to earn that love. I hated my wings, hated everyone’s wings, just because of that.”

Webby looks at his profile. He’s not silhouetted, not quite, but he still looks like a photograph, pensive. A little smile on his face as he recalls. Webby scoots closer and sinks into his side, chewing slowly. He pauses to swallow his cookie, then waves it around to punctuate his sentences. “Then there was one night when I realized there wasn’t anything I had to  _ do  _ to earn love. That’s not how love works. Trust, maybe, but we don’t have trust wings, do we?”

Webby huffs a laugh. Donald does the same, and brings an arm up to cradle her to his side.

“That night, I was just being me, and I felt it. Unca Scrooge accepted me as a family member.”

“It sounds nice,” Webby says, finishing her mutilated cookie. “Sounds like love.”

“It was. Is.”

The sun waves its last rays goodbye and disappears. The night is cobalt, brilliant, and Donald seems to let all the tension of the day melt into the concrete below them. He waits.

“It’s not fair,” Webby whispers.

Donald doesn’t prompt. He just keeps softly rubbing her arm, one wing draped over her back to shield her from the slight breeze.

“She left. She had the perfect life, adventure at her fingertips and love to her  _ bones.  _ I didn’t have that. She did, and she bailed on all of it, just so she could fly ahead of schedule.”

Her throat closes up. Webby stifles a sudden sob, hugs Donald’s midsection. He picks her up and moves her to his lap so he can properly hug her, and she breathes in sharply, trying not to cry. 

“I wanted a family,” Webby says when she feels like her lungs are back in place. “I wanted adventure. I wanted bigger wings, I wanted a family, I wanted a  _ family—” _

Donald whispers, “She gave them to you.”

Webby meets his eyes for the first time tonight. “What?”

“She left. Yeah. And there’s a space where she was, a hole in the quilt, but you, Webby?” 

Donald smiles at her. His eyes are misty, but not from sadness, Webby thinks. “Webby, you’re the patch over it. You’re the daughter I never had, the sister that the boys never had. You’ve always been Scrooge’s great-nice and Beakley’s grandkid and Launchpad’s buddy and Lena’s best friend. You have a family.” He pets her head, smooths her hair down from its mussed-up state. “I’m sorry we’re late, but—”

“Don’t apologize,” Webby says fiercely, and hugs him tighter, using her own little wings to encircle him. “Don’t ever apologize.”

“I love you,” Donald tells her, protecting them both from the chilling air. Webby’s primaries and secondaries grow warm, rough with heat, but nothing grows that she can feel—and then she realizes they’ve always been that way, ever since Donald and the triplets came to the Manor, they’ve always been big enough to support her.

“I love you too,” Webby says, and it feels like everything she ever wanted.

_ \---lena--- _

By nearly every measure of the word, Lena isn’t real.

She’s a shadow. The teenage, slightly magical manifestation of her aunt’s lack of light; the physical evidence of Magica de Spell’s physical evidence. 

Magica has green wings. Green like pond scum and moldy bread, green like the bottom of the barrel, green like a lingering illness. They’re large, but enhanced so only by magic. Otherwise, they’d be marginal coverts, and marginal coverts alone. 

But they’re flesh and blood. Magica has wings made of meat, and Lena has wings made of light that doesn’t go through them, and as such, they are stagnant.

Lena doesn’t have love wings. She just has extra limbs.

She didn’t live on the beach so much as escaped there, whenever she wasn’t caught in the footsteps of her aunt. She liked how the water made her wings feel real, and how they turned the pink of her feathers to a dark, shiny rose. She liked how she never had to worry about molting or shedding because someone didn’t love her, and how she could pretend that Magica did, just a little, because look at all this  _ family _ tucked under her  _ self-love,  _ it’s there, it has to be.

She meets Webby, and not long after, she loves Webby, and feels nothing new.

\---

The Duck-McDuck clan is interesting. It’s nothing she’s ever been exposed to before, and everything she was missing. 

Webby says that in that way, they were alike. Different situations before the triplets and Donald, but neither of them had an entire family—just scraps of one, just enough to get by. 

But they’re still  _ different. _ Webby grows family in her wings, but Lena’s stay large and half-pink and sharp. 

(they’re not things she should be ashamed of. anyone would want to have this many feathers.) 

It’s not until one morning that she changes her mind.

The Manor is quiet. Scrooge is out, which is a little odd, but Lena pays it no mind. The boys are nowhere to be found. Webby, though—she’s in her room, quiet in bed, reading some book or other. 

Sedentary. Lena knows the feeling.

The taller girl flutters up to the window and knocks. She’d contemplated throwing rocks to alert her friend, but if she’d broken it, Beakley would never forgive her. 

Webby perks up and shifts a bit to see out the glass. Her face brightens when she sees Lena, and she waves, friendship bracelet jangling, and gestures for Lena to come inside.

The window is unlocked, so Lena tumbles in, rolling to a stop against Webby’s bed. The blanket cushions her head. “Hey,” she says belatedly.

“Hey, Lena,” Webby says. She dog-ears her page and sets the book aside, focusing fully on her friend. “What’s up?”

“Oh, I was…” Lena pauses, looks down at her hands. What is she doing here? She’d just gotten sick of the beach, sick of the gray,  _ sick. _ “I was lonely. Felt like swinging by.”

Webby nods seriously. “I’m glad you swung by.”

There’s quiet for a moment. Lena isn’t exactly the queen of small talk. 

“What are you reading?”

And Webby’s wings and arms splay wildly as she delves into the plot of her magical girl book, which turns into a discussion of the merits of soft and hard magic systems, which  _ then _ turns into a comparison between fictional magic and real-life magic, and it all just kind of circles back to—

“I mean,” Webby says, “Love wings are a sort of real-life magic, but they don’t correlate with any other—”

The surprised ruffling of Lena’s feathers cuts her off. When Lena doesn’t say anything, Webby gives her an odd look. “What?”

Lena goes horizontal on her bed, one wing awkwardly extended to accommodate the new position. “I thought it was more science-y than that.”

“It has something to do with wavelengths,” Webby agrees. “Like, your love travelled on a wavelength to make these grow.” She gestures to her purple primary coverts and secondaries, and a little wisp of pride lights up in Lena’s chest. 

“But. It’s still magic?” Lena says.

“Wavelengths don’t make wings grow. At least, I’m pretty sure they don’t. I guess it’s the type… Why does it matter?”

Lena peers at her from under hooded eyes. “Who said it matters?”

“You look like you think it matters.”

And it does, to her. It was something she could have—maybe not for herself, but something that didn’t make her just a little more of her aunt. Magic wings means extra gut-punching confirmation that her wings are as dead as the rest of her. 

In all these books, Lena thinks, the kids supposed to be happy. Magic is their best friend. God, if that wasn’t literal. Why is Lena the wrong kind of fantasy? She’s some manipulated imagining, like a demon in a frilly dress and pigtails. A supernova waiting to burn out.

Webby’s arms are around her in an instant. Lena hadn’t even realized she’d been sniffling. 

“I’m sorry,” the littler girl whispers, though she doesn’t understand.

“Not your fault,” Lena says, melting into the hug.

“That means I can’t still be sorry about it?” Webby leans back a bit to meet her eyes. 

Lena huffs a laugh. It’s a wet, choked sound, but Webby smiles anyway. “No, dummy,” she says. 

Webby reaches back and curls her fingers into Lena’s wings. Her touch is warm and familiar, but it’s only pressure. Lena’s never been able to feel much. 

Still. It feels nice. Lena and Webby stay like that for a little bit, close together, one petting the other like a precious thing. 

“Why did you start crying?” Webby asks quietly.

“It felt,” Lena says, and stops. What did it feel like? Like anesthesia, the last living part of her turning to dead weight, like something she had tried too hard to love becoming useless anyway. “It felt lonely,” she finishes. “You know I can’t grow anything.”

Webby says, “I didn’t know that.”

A moment later, she extricates herself from Lena’s tight arms. She fumbles off the bed and goes for a drawer in her room covered in stickers. Lena watches, head tilted so her hair falls out of her eye.

Webby pulls out a box swirling with gaudy colors. She removes a smaller jewelry box and returns with both, heaving them onto her bed and climbing atop it again.

“Turn around,” she instructs, brokering no argument.

“What’s going on?” Lena asks, but complies.

Webby doesn’t answer. She pops the top of the big box, digs her hands into the colors, comes up with hands full of fake feathers.

As if in anticipation, Lena’s wings flutter. The vanes of the fake feathers follow suit in the breeze, and Webby opens the jewelry box to remove a huge assortment of hair clips.

She gingerly holds up a red feather and a bow clip, and fastens it to one of Lena’s primaries.

Oh.  _ Oh. _

Webby works at her wings, only breaking the silence every so often to hum a few notes. Lena tries to keep still.

Five, ten, nearly fifteen minutes pass like this—to children, an eternity. 

“What are you doing?” Lena finally asks. The sun outside is starting to turn the sky full blue, shedding the last soft sunrise clouds. It layers like honey spools over the kids.

Webby doesn’t answer. Lena twists back enough to see her, determined, pinning feathers to feathers, her tongue adorably stuck out in concentration. Lena’s shift causes Webby to swat her neck, a reminder to stay still.

Another few minutes pass. 

And then, a silent breath. “Done.”

Webby walks around her to study her craftsmanship. Lena lifts her wings carefully, allowing her to see everything. The odd weight of the fake plumes trembles through her.

“You should see yourself,” Webby says. “My mirror.”

Lena slides off the bed and Webby drags over a full-body mirror, angling it to catch her and oh, oh wow.

Threaded through her primaries and secondaries are a rainbow of curly quills, an over-bright shimmer of color, and the backs of her wings are adorned with bow clips and tie clips and little stars and flowers. She looks like light through a prism.

Webby stands just a little behind her, cut off halfway by the mirror. She says with a nearly sheepish smile, “Now you can see how much I love you.” 

The rainbows turn blurry. Lena’s eyes are watering. She pivots and pulls Webby into a hug, colorful wings wrapping around her. She whispers love into Webby’s scalp, thanks her a million times more, for her love, for her friendship, for her light.

“Don’t thank me,” Webby says. “I’m just returning the favor.”

_ \---fenton & gyro--- _

Fenton grew up perfectly alright.

His wings are average. His mother loves him; all the family he has does, really. He grows up with the normal amount of friends and has a few amorous pursuits and believes in his own self-worth, despite—well. His boss. 

Not Mr. McDuck. No, the billionaire gives Fenton a healthy dose of scapulars, respecting his work and dedication enough to fulfill him where Gyro kind of doesn’t. 

Surprisingly, Fenton is quite well-adjusted, despite being fatherless and a part-time superhero and often belittled because Gyro Gearloose did  _ not  _ grow up alright.

Gyro’s wings—they’re a bit pitiful. He has a lot of scapulars. Admiration from the public, professional respect. He has ‘love from a distance’ feathers by the dozen. But they thin out from there, a few quills of philautia, no alulas that Fenton can see, sparse primaries and no secondaries. He has some secondary coverts, flighty love, but that’s where it ends. They look pitiful, scrappy, like a kindergartener’s collage—unfinished. Fenton doesn’t even know what color they are, aside from the generic white of the top.

So Fenton makes it his mission to befriend his mad scientist boss.

This is more difficult than it should be.

Gyro is bitter, rude, and standoffish, all synonyms that are just different enough to earn their own place. He doesn’t accept help and holds himself to an absurdly high standard, works too late and eats too little. Fenton makes flowchart after flowchart trying to figure out his courses of action, what he can do to ease his boss’s suffering, get him to understand Fenton is only trying to ease the pain. Ease the workload. Gyro proves chaotic as well. 

So of course Fenton stumbles on the answer by accident. 

(bacon and descartes, who?)

\---

It happens while he’s making coffee at ten p.m. He’s taken to staying later with Gyro, just to keep him company; Lil Bulb shuts off sometime around eleven every day, charging like a nightlight in some corner outlet, and Manny has a stable stall built… somewhere… that he retires to as early as he can. Fenton doesn’t want Gyro to be alone. What if something goes wrong? What if he gets hurt, and there’s no one around to help?   
So he makes coffee and notes and sometimes fills the silence with idle chatter, would Dr. Gearloose ever invent something like this, should he try making churros sometime for lunch and would Dr. Gearloose like to try, where exactly does Manny get all his thought-processing faculties. 

Gyro never responds. But he gets up for coffee, almost meets Fenton’s eyes when he passes by the intern’s desk, always leaves a second cup out like a silent offering. 

Fenton pours himself a cup and adds as little sugar as he can. The mug beside him, stained brown at the bottom, reads  _ 4-10 Coffee That _ and is Gyro’s preferred cup. Fenton puts it out so Gyro can pour some if he wants. He stays by the machine, though.

Gyro leaves his desk. He almost meets Fenton’s eyes but not quite. He reaches by to grab the pot and their wings brush, just for a moment, and it happens every day to Fenton on the street, happens when his mother weaves around him in the kitchen, happens when Lil Bulb climbs on him and when Manny pats him on the back.

But the reaction from  _ Gyro _ is instantaneous.

He freezes, hand half-wrapped around the pot handle. His entire body goes stock-still. Fenton watches, stares, feels like something special has just happened.

A second passes. Two. Four, seven, and Gyro starts to move again, slow and robotic as he pours himself a cup of diabetes. He retracts his wings so tightly to his back that it probably hurts.

Before he can convince himself that it’s a terrible idea, Fenton reaches out and strokes Gyro’s wings.

It’s not a particularly intimate thing, to touch someone else’s wings. It can’t be if they’re always out and moving. This isn’t really different from brushing someone’s arm, but it is different to them, because Fenton’s touch is deliberate. It’s not some casual thing Gyro can throw away or pass off as an accident.

Gyro stiffens again, not a feather moving. He’s probably not breathing either. Fenton just moves in a little closer and parses his fingers through Gyro’s sparse quills.

“What are you doing,” Gyro not-quite-asks, voice dangerously quiet.

Fenton says, “Easing.” He doesn’t stop. Gyro doesn’t ask him to stop.

What a pair they are, Fenton thinks. The short fluffy intern petting his boss’s wings just because the chicken looks perpetually strung out. 

Fenton’s coffee has gone from steaming to warm before Gyro starts to relax. The height of his shoulders diminishes, his scrunched face slackens. His permanent slouch turns dreamier. Fenton blinks, and Gyro’s wings seem fuller, secondaries there that weren’t there before.

They’re pink. Like Gyro’s bow tie, Fenton realizes with the tiniest smile.

Gyro’s eyes are closed. He relaxes completely into Fenton’s touch, which grows bolder with each passing minute. Gyro’s been starving for this, he realizes—starving for connection, for physical reality. He’s been floating on scraggly wings, adrift in Duckburg. Nobody’s properly touched him in  _ years. _

Fenton makes it his new mission to hug his boss as much as he can.

_ \---glomgold--- _

Wings are pointless.

Contrary to popular belief, Flintheart Glomgold is a big believer in practicality. If a thing doesn’t work, what use is it? Now, ‘work’ has a loose definition to him—if something shines, it probably works for him—but he’s not extravagant. If he spent like he’ll die tomorrow, he wouldn’t be rich. It’s not like he’s living off his amazing work ethics.

Flintheart doesn’t have wings. Which, what gives? Scrooge McDuck has big pretty wings. He can probably fly with them. But Flintheart got stuck with a very pointed absence of big pretty wings, and strongly dislikes said absence, and is strongly not-jealous of his rival’s.

In fact, why does anyone even have wings? Flintheart sees his employees gain and lose entire patches of feathers like nothing. He doesn’t know much about molting, only knows what he’s seen from the people around him (and he doesn’t, uh. get out much) and it doesn’t seem to be correlated to that whatsoever.

So. What  _ gives. _

Well, it doesn’t bother him a lot, but it is annoying. People look at him weirdly even if they don’t know who he is. It’s a talking point that comes up halfway through every interview. It bothers the world that he doesn’t have six limbs.

One reporter somewhere, somewhen in time, says it’s fitting. That if he had wings, they’d be featherless twigs.

He doesn’t understand the look of pity Zan sends him when they hear that, but he gets mad anyways. 

Okay, maybe that’s unfair. He actually likes Zan, and thinks that despite his behavior and fixation on genius schemes, she likes him too. Or feels protective of him, like he’s a child oblivious to bullies around him, not understanding why what they say hurts.  _ Something  _ keeps her around, and Flintheart isn’t dumb enough to assume it’s his sparkling personality.

He tries to show his appreciation for her in less overt ways than usual. She doesn’t seem to like big gestures, always cringes at that part of the movie when he puts them on to avoid working. Flintheart has always liked arts and crafts, so he draws her pictures on sticky notes, little doodles of her in superhero capes and king crowns and suits of armor, huge wings flared behind her. He leaves them for her on her desk and grins to himself when she finds them and smiles for just a millisecond.

Her wings seem a little bigger, a little brighter, in the mornings, and Flintheart feels a rugged warmth in his chest. 

\---

Zan turns on the news in the morning. It’s her kind of research—what are the other companies doing, what big scandals should she avoid today—and today there’s a four-minute study on Scrooge McDuck, which draws Flintheart’s attention immediately, eager to see what his rival’s plans are.

This is not about his plans.

“One of Scrooge McDuck’s great-nephews posted a picture of the World’s Richest Duck this morning at nine,” The reporter reports. “The Billbook post garnered a modest amount of attention, as usual, but one fan pointed out a discrepancy in the photo. It seems that McDuck’s alula feathers have  _ doubled _ since his last photo, taken two days ago and posted to the same account.” The photo flashes over the screen but is quickly replaced again by the reporter’s shocked, wide-eyed expression.

They keep talking, but Flintheart’s attention is now directed at Zan, who is giving him a suspicious side-eye. He squints at her and asks, “What?” like she doesn’t understand the question in his eyes.

“You have anything to do with that?” She says, one wing lifting to acknowledge the TV. 

Flintheart blinks. “Why would I glue feathers  _ over _ feathers?”

Zan boggles at him. “You don’t…”

“Don’t what?”

“Get comfy,” The owl orders, and Flintheart complies, a little scared at her tone. She turns off the television and faces him completely, hands steepled under her beak. “I have a lot to teach you.”

_ \---scrooge--- _

It’s a little difficult to be Scrooge McDuck.

Well. It’s always been a little difficult. That’s his life story, isn’t it? The whole ‘no pain, no gain’ motto he preaches to the masses. It’s not something he regrets, or dislikes about his life. Maybe things would be nicer if they were easier, but if things were easier, he wouldn’t be Scrooge McDuck. 

He’d be Gladstone.

Which, no.

Scrooge has huge wings. They’re shiny and sleek, fluffiest around the scapulars where they join at his back, full to bursting with adoration from the world. He is loved for his fame and money and excitement, he is respected for his ethics and perseverance.

He loves and respects himself, as evidenced by his healthy marginal coverts. He knows he is incredibly important to the world. Why deny it?   
His longer, lower feathers are where he starts to lose sense. 

Before Della, he had the strongest wings in the world. Della adored him for everything he was, had an unbreakable bond forged from adventure and shared love of danger. They were family, but they were also best friends, and that made him strong enough to fly. 

Donald was quieter in his love. He contributed to his uncle’s wings, of course, and Scrooge right back, but for all that Scrooge adores his nephew, they never… got along quite as well, maybe.

After Della, he doesn’t lose so much as a feather for months. It takes almost a year for him to drop any primary converts—longstanging love, evidence of his bond with Della. 

It takes several more for his friendship with Donald to finally tremble and fall away. It’s the coma of their relationship (he refuses to think death. their love for each other is not  _ dead _ , it can’t be, scrooge can fix this, can’t he), but privately, Scrooge thinks of it as the days where Donald finally gave up hope of his uncle calling. Reaching out.

Scrooge forgets that love is a two-way street. He forgets that communication is what keeps his feathers in place. He’s never been good at sharing.

The only thing, he thinks, that really keeps him going during that ten-year interval, is stubborn, idiotic, wingless Flintheart Glomgold. Each year that passes, each silly golf tournament they attend, flimsy arguments covering ice cream outings, biting debates over movies they see together. Scrooge thinks of himself as the sane one, but when he’s starting to lose his grip, it’s Glomgold that keeps him on the ground, because Glomgold is so  _ alive. _

And God, if that thought doesn't scare him to his bones. But he can’t run, not when this breathing bonfire of a being is challenging him, making him think, stimulating his stagnating mind and muscles. He looks for ways out—not because he wants one, but because he’s scared of burning himself (even if he’s cold, all the time; he never lets himself get close enough to thaw).

Donald comes by for the first time in ten years. He has the boys in tow. They never leave, and Scrooge has his exit from his weird love-hate-friendship with Glomgold, and he doesn’t take it, because he’s been so, so cold until now.

\--- 

They come back from that mission red and ragged and Scrooge finally believes in the sheer depth of Donald’s love for his family. 

He’s so proud of his boy for learning to love himself, to see himself the way the Duck-McDuck family does. It’s taken far too long, in his opinion. 

That night drains him. Emotionally. He’s not good at sharing, and that was way too much sharing, though of course he doesn’t regret it. 

But it gives him an idea.

Seeing all those wings—four little pairs, heather and marzipan and summer blue, as well as his own in burgundy—and watching Donald grow his philautia feathers; amidst all that pride, he thinks of Glomgold, and wonders about how he knows love.

(it has nothing to do with the alula feathers that have crept in slowly, strategically, over a decade of barely noticing, over his wings. nothing.) 

The next morning, he flies out to Glomgold’s building and lands on a porch outside a conference room. Inside, he can see Zan pacing, one of her wings folded while the other stretches wide. She gestures to it, and—oh, there’s Glomgold, squinting at her like she’s shining a flashlight into his eyes. 

He goes to knock, or to leave, or something, but the business owl catches his glance and goes still for a moment.

She says something he can’t catch. The word  _ lucky _ might be in there.

(wasn’t there an interview or a study or something about him this morning?)

Suddenly she’s striding over to pull open the glass doors and she has an iron hand around his wrist and Glomgold is staring with a look of something dawning. Scrooge is inside and Zan has a hook of fingers pulling his wing out to point.

“See?” She says. Scrooge puts two and two together when she waves at his alulas. “This part, these feathers up here, they come from romantic love.”

Glomgold’s expression doesn’t change. He’s not even looking at Scrooge’s outstretched wing—no, his gaze is fixated on Scrooge’s own. 

Belatedly, Scrooge yanks his wing out of Zan’s grasp and it flutters uncomfortably at his side. “What are you doing?”

Zan sighs. “I’m teaching my boss about wing anatomy. He doesn’t understand why we have them.”

Scrooge spares a brief glance to Glomgold, who looks less like Scrooge has grown six heads and more like an embarrassed child. “Well, of course he doesn’t,” Scrooge says before his mind catches up. “He doesn’t have any.”

Zan blanches at him. “You can’t—you can’t just—” She splutters for a moment, arms constricting. 

Glomgold’s brows deepen into something like frustration, and he climbs the table in order to meet Scrooge’s eye. 

“What?” Scrooge asks.

Glomgold huffs a laugh, but it’s not funny. “Oh, really? I don’t have wings? Golly, should’a noticed before now! I s’pose Mummy didn’t love me enough to give me any, hm? You’ve truly shown me the light, Scroogie, I never knew.”

“I get it,” Scrooge hisses. “Sorry for bringing it up.”

_ “Are _ you?”

“God, stop fighting,” Zan says, which effectively shuts up both ducks. “It’s like watching first graders bicker. You—” She points at Scrooge— “need to watch your filter. Insulting your enemies does nothing to make them _not_ _your enemies._ And you—” Here, she looks at Glomgold— “you, well. Just. Be nice in general. That’s all I can hope from you, really.”

“Sweet of you, Owlson,” Glomgold mutters. There’s no bite behind it.

“Thank you.” She takes a step back from the situation and slides out a seat. “Now, I know you can’t stand to be in the same room as each other, but you have certain things to talk about, and as much as I love dramatic battlefield confessions, one of you is a majorly influential force in the world and the other is my boss and I’d rather neither of you get hurt by your little feelings.”

Scrooge nods appraisingly at Glomgold. “You found a good one.”

“I know, right?”

“So I’m going to leave,” Zan says, louder than them to drown them out, “and you are going to sit down and discuss why exactly Mr. McDuck’s alulas are quite the mass they are now. Sound good?”

“Evil,” Glomgold says. “What even are alulas?”

Zan sighs. She’s gone before her next inhale. 

Scrooge stares after her, then shakes his head. He didn’t think he’d ever have this conversation. He didn’t even think anyone would pick up on the changes in his wings. Now the whole world knows—but only he (and zan) knows why.

“What’s all this about?” Glomgold says into the silence. He’s watching Scrooge with an tactician’s eye, as if calculating all the ways this could go wrong. 

Scrooge shoves his hands into his pockets. He scuffs the floor with one foot. Looks up. “We need to talk, I suppose.”

Talking. The balm, he thinks. A tool he’d forgotten he had for—God,  _ decades,  _ probably even longer. All the things he could fix just by talking. The thing he could fix now, just by talking, the thing he could have for himself, if he lets himself want. 

“Okay, then,” Glomgold says, settling back into a chair in the sunlit conference room. “Talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bleh that took so long happy quarantine


End file.
